1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a video system, particularly to a device and method of depth map generation for conversion of two-dimensional (2D) image data into three-dimensional (3D) image data.
2. Description of the Related Art
Human are pursuing the reality of vision devices. The video devices improve from monochrome to 3D LCD today. The video signals also vary in the video devices. Currently, since a stereoscopic 3D display has been commercialized and services associated with 3D contents, such as with 3D movies, have increased, users' desires for the same have increased. However, lack of 3D content prevents 3D display from being commercialized in the current market. In contrast, there exists a large amount of 2D contents in both commercial market and personal recording for which it may be desirable to convert into 3D video.
U.S. Publication. No. 2011/0096832 (by Zhang et al.) describes a depth map generation for conversion of 2D video data into 3D video data, computing motion for high motion pixels (hereinafter called “first analysis”) based on a frame c and a previous frame c−1 and extracting color components for low motion pixels (hereinafter called “second analysis”) based on the frame c. Referring to FIG. 5 of Zhang, for any low motion pixels, the depth values generated based on motion may be replaced with depth values determined from pixel color components. One problem with the Zhang's method is that a lot of storage space is required to temporarily store the frame c and the previous frame c−1 for first analysis. Another problem is that color components of the frame c are required for second analysis, therefore increasing depth estimation computational complexity.
Accordingly, what is needed is a method and apparatus to address the above-identified problems. The invention addresses such a need.